BoxRec

bjermaine wrote:

Elton John wrote:

bjermaine wrote:my top 5 pound for pound fighters of all-time are (in chronological order) Sam Langford, Henry Armstrong, Ray Robinson, Ray Leonard, and Roy Jones. The reason for this is all of these fighters were very successful when they moved up in weight.

name your top 5...

Ray Leonard, the man who was floored by Kevin Howard

yes, that ray leonard. the same ray leonard that stopped benitez, duran, and hearns at welter. even ray robinson didn't beat that level of comp at welter.

Elton John wrote:

bjermaine wrote:

Elton John wrote: Ray Leonard, the man who was floored by Kevin Howard

yes, that ray leonard. the same ray leonard that stopped benitez, duran, and hearns at welter. even ray robinson didn't beat that level of comp at welter.

how high a Level you talking about? Duran only had 6 fights at that point and Benitez was making his first defense. Wilfred had moved up from 140 and Duran moved up not one weight class but two weight-and he still beat him!

Hearns only faced on major opponent-Cuevas. The rest were washed up pugs or never weres, including his title defenses-that's why he looked so awesome destroying them all but in reality he didnt even know how to clinch or survive when hurt. Tommy was really lacking in certain areas.

so now we have a true perspective of the true level of these welterweights.

Truthfully, the only moderns you can include next to the Grebs, The Robinsons, the Loughrans, and Dempseys are Roy Jones, Marvin Hagler, Monzon, Ali, Duran, and Bob Foster. Notice no phony retirements and no less than 12 defenses.

I dont believe a true top five fighter would have been dropped by so small a club fighter. Ray was only 27 and it's not as though he was off that long. Ali was off 3 &1/2 years and wasn't dropped by Quarry or Bonevena.

You really ought to look further into other fighters from previous decades before rushing to judgement on leonard. We've all seen what little Leonard did in his career. It's based on familiarity of opposition. I doubt you have the same familiarity with fighters from previous generations.

bjermaine wrote:
yes, that ray leonard. the same ray leonard that stopped benitez, duran, and hearns at welter. even ray robinson didn't beat that level of comp at welter.

Ambling Alp wrote:Obviously Langford was one of the greatest fighters of all time. I have him in my Top 10, but not quite my Top 5.

He certainly fought great competition and was very successful. However, when you compare him to other legends, you have to nitpick. Here are the negatives:

-Yes, he beat McVey and Jeannette. However he also lost to them. Head to head as a heavyweight, they were very close to him.

-The loss to Gunboat Smith. A good, but not great fighter, who weighed less than Langford. Yes he did avenge the loss, and this is just one fight out of 300. However, you have to look at everything.

-Draws against good but not great fighters like Colin Bell,Jim Johnson, and Sandy Ferguson.

Again, he had so many wins over good, very good, and great opponents that far outweigh these negatives. I just think that when you weigh everything, and weigh what others have done, there are a few other fighters who had slightly better careers. It's certainly arguable either way.

Elton John wrote:He was lucky Terry Norris wasnt around in those days either. His career was short enough as it was.

Goodnight, Irene wrote:Alp, simply put, I have considered the Heavyweights, because as I noted, they're not precluded from my considerations. However, I have come to the conclusion that none are good enough. It's that straight-forward.

Good night- You have an obvious bias against heavyweights. You have said so yourself. "As far as pound for pound ratings go, I just flat-out will always give an edge to non-heavyweights".

That is a pretty clear statement that shows bias against heavyweights.

You may under the assumption that the heavyweight division has always been as bad as it is now. It hasn't. It's weaker now than it has been in more than 100 years. Usually there was as much depth at heavyweight as there was at most of the other weight classes at any one given moment of time. Their "skill sets" as you call it, were just as good.

You mentioned why it is supposedly harder to fight in lower weight classes. I refuted this and you didn't even try to counter my arguements.

I can see how if this thread asked for, say, (just as an example) a top thirty assessment of all-time pound-for-pounders, you would have a problem with me not mentioning Ali. But the top five? Ever? Ali is #2 on my all-time Heavyweight list (though I do not have a problem with him being #1). It'd be a tall order for him to make the five best ever. I'm hardly the only one taking that stance, btw.

I think there is a perception that I am anti-Ali because I am usually the one arguing against, however, this is because I truly do feel he has become overstated to this untouchable degree, & maybe no one notices when I have something positive to say (one of a few examples, months ago, I wrote a three paragraph acknowledgement of his ability & just how good I thought he was in the scheme of things --- only Granberry replied).

You obviously don't like the amount of attention that Ali gets. Fine. (As I have mentioned in other posts, that's how it works. The #1 guy always get way too attention. doesn't mean that they aren't the best. Tiger Woods is still the best Golfer. Gretzky was still the best Hockey player. Pele was still the best Soccer player.)
However, it's obvious that it's clouding your judgement when it comes to rating him.


Again, I've considered him. I've considered Louis, & Holmes, & Fitzsimmons. I don't think any are good enough. I don't have a, "bias" against Heavies. I just think it's harder to be a little man, & for that I assign more points.

Well, atleast you aren't as crazy as some people when it comes to ali. However, I have seen enough of your posts to know that you aren't reviewing him accurately.
I pointed out why he had the abilites (best handspeed and reflexes pound for pound etc. ) and had the career achievements that right up there with anyone. (Most dominating title reign -1964-1967, of anyone of any weight, able to be the best when past his best in a very strong era, 1970-1975.)
You didn't even try to refute that.

Once again "I just think it's harder being a little man". As I mentioned earlier, that notion isn't very well thought out.



As for Leonard, I've never said a single bad word about him on the forum. I wrote that short spiel about him to bait Granberry, & you seem to think because I wasn't serious, that I have no respect for him. But if we are going to play the bias card because Ali isn't in my top five, I think it only fair that we assess Leonard (one of your favourites, by coincidence?) being in your top five, when it's easily arguable that he isn't the best in Welterweight history, & could quite obviously only just slip into the top five in the history of that division, much less all boxing.

Ambling Alp wrote: Add his victory over Hagler after a long layoff.

granberry wrote:

Ambling Alp wrote: Add his victory over Hagler after a long layoff.

Ezzard wrote:

Ambling Alp wrote:Obviously Langford was one of the greatest fighters of all time. I have him in my Top 10, but not quite my Top 5.

He certainly fought great competition and was very successful. However, when you compare him to other legends, you have to nitpick. Here are the negatives:

-Yes, he beat McVey and Jeannette. However he also lost to them. Head to head as a heavyweight, they were very close to him.

-The loss to Gunboat Smith. A good, but not great fighter, who weighed less than Langford. Yes he did avenge the loss, and this is just one fight out of 300. However, you have to look at everything.

-Draws against good but not great fighters like Colin Bell,Jim Johnson, and Sandy Ferguson.

Again, he had so many wins over good, very good, and great opponents that far outweigh these negatives. I just think that when you weigh everything, and weigh what others have done, there are a few other fighters who had slightly better careers. It's certainly arguable either way.

He still had the better of McVey and Jeanette. He has wins over Wills too. I'd say any HW who fought those three the number of times Sam did would lose some. When you look at the fact that he was smaller than almost all of the HW greats then it has a big impact on his p4p ranking. Then we have wins over Gans, Blackburn, Holly, O'Brien, Flowers and Norfolk... Draws with Ketchel and Walcott. These are legends of boxing. I know there are circumstances around the Gans victory but even so...

I can't really hold defeats at HW against a man who was fighting men far bigger than himself.

The only reason I don't put him at number 1 is because it would be pretty hard for the sport if the best fighter had such little film exposure.

granberry wrote:

bjermaine wrote:
yes, that ray leonard. the same ray leonard that stopped benitez, duran, and hearns at welter. even ray robinson didn't beat that level of comp at welter.

Leonard stopped Benitez??
The Las Vegas referee stopped Benitez---with SIX SECONDS left.
Because the betting dictated he do that.

Benitez hadn't fought in 8 months. His own father wrote an article for Ring magazine saying Benitez wasn't going to be in shape for the fight.
His own cornermen refused to appear with him, because he only started training weeks before the fight.

Leonard stopped Duran??
If you can swallow raw horsesh*t, (at least a bucket of it) you can say Leonard stopped Duran.
That was such a fake that the media studiously avoided quoting a single former champion's comments on that fake.
Garbage like that can only be sold to the sheep who have never seen a fight before.
"Stopped Duran" my ass.

Leonard stopped Hearns??
“They stopped the fight. I don’t believe it. Hearns was ahead on points,” was the comment of Don Dunphy.

Leonard had another fight with Hearns where Leonard was knocked down TWICE and got a DRAW.
Do you think if Leonard had knocked down Hearns TWICE, they would have given Hearns a DRAW?

The defining fight of Leonard’s career was his first fight with Duran.
Leonard lost to a old, overweight, out of shape 135 pounder.
He was lucky he wasn’t in there with Carmen Basilio.

Jaclem wrote:..bjermaine..i am well aware..and have probably been so much longer than you have....that fitzsimmons didn't drop down in weight..which is why i was carefull to say he dropped down one DIVISION.... weight CLASS is another way of saying it.

glad you have stopped wasting your time here...it keeps you from wasting ours.

dr_devious wrote:

Elton John wrote:He was lucky Terry Norris wasnt around in those days either. His career was short enough as it was.

Is this supposed to be ironic?

bjermaine wrote:

Elton John wrote:

bjermaine wrote: yes, that ray leonard. the same ray leonard that stopped benitez, duran, and hearns at welter. even ray robinson didn't beat that level of comp at welter.

how high a Level you talking about? Duran only had 6 fights at that point and Benitez was making his first defense. Wilfred had moved up from 140 and Duran moved up not one weight class but two weight-and he still beat him!

Hearns only faced on major opponent-Cuevas. The rest were washed up pugs or never weres, including his title defenses-that's why he looked so awesome destroying them all but in reality he didnt even know how to clinch or survive when hurt. Tommy was really lacking in certain areas.

so now we have a true perspective of the true level of these welterweights.

Truthfully, the only moderns you can include next to the Grebs, The Robinsons, the Loughrans, and Dempseys are Roy Jones, Marvin Hagler, Monzon, Ali, Duran, and Bob Foster. Notice no phony retirements and no less than 12 defenses.

I dont believe a true top five fighter would have been dropped by so small a club fighter. Ray was only 27 and it's not as though he was off that long. Ali was off 3 &1/2 years and wasn't dropped by Quarry or Bonevena.

You really ought to look further into other fighters from previous decades before rushing to judgement on leonard. We've all seen what little Leonard did in his career. It's based on familiarity of opposition. I doubt you have the same familiarity with fighters from previous generations.

so ok i won't count him because he got knocked down in a fight he won. i am a fight collector. i have or at least seen footage on every great fighter there is or was. i'm have to stop writing now, this is wasting my time.

Goodnight, Irene wrote:I said I think it's harder to be a little man (at the highest level, you flat-out face a broader range of opponents who have more abilities across the board, & you invariably end up facing superior competition). That is not admitting I have a bias against Heavyweights, any more than it is biased of you to say Ray Leonard is better than me because he moves faster, is more adaptable, has more fight experience etc. The skill level at Heavyweight has never been as good across the board as it has been in the lower weights.

That simply isn't true. The heavyweights often face a wider range of opponents. You clearly don't understand what I mean by the talent pool being divided up, or choose to ignore it. Take the lightweight division. Only fighters that weigh more 130 and not more than 135 fight in it. Obviously that exludes a huge amount of people. the heavyweight division includes everyone over 200. Obviously that is going to be more people. Historically, it included everyone over 175. By sheer numbers, the odds you are going to have a large amount of heavyweights that are at least decent.

The heavyweight division isn't the worst division at all times. Are you seriously going to argue that the heavyweight division of the 1970's was the weakest division?
There is no reason that a big man can't be as skillful as a small man. Like the other divisions, sometimes the heavyweight division strong, some times it's weak, sometimes it's in between.

Ali did not have the, "most dominating title reign from 1964-67", given the competition. I didn't refute that because it's beneath arguing. You probably know I already place more emphasis on fighters beating one another (hypothetically) anyway, & I sure am not struggling to think of five well-accomplished men in boxing history that could have beaten Ali.

You put more emphasis on fighters beating each other hypothetically anyway? You should look at a fighters real fights to decide how good he was.
Given the competition? Look at Ali's competition during that time. He beat Sonny Liston and Floyd Patterson, two great heavyweights. Most of the other opponents were good fighters. Brian London would have been the only one in the Bum of the Month Club.
He was 10-0, with 8 KO's and 2 lopsided decision wins. That is very dominating.
No to mention that a past his prime Ali beat Frazier and Foreman(whom you rate as the #3 heavyweight of all time.)

If you want to talk competition, take a hard look at the opponents one of the other fighters that you have in your top 5; Willie Pep beat two great fighters in his whole career; he went 1-3 against Saddler and beat Manuel Ortiz. After that, there a huge dropoff.

One thing that bothers me --- you are trying to say, "the #1 guy always gets more respect than the #2 guy" when we both know, Alp, that you are too knowledgeable to not know better. Ali is a rare exception (untouchable) & you know that. It is not like Tiger Woods or any other athlete.

How often does Tiger Woods get criticized? I certainly can't remember the last time it happened. How about Gretzky? How about Pele?
Aren't they "untouchable". (btw, Ali certainly isn't untouchable on this forum. We spend more time talking about fights when he was over the hill against Young, Shavers etc than we do when he was in his prime. Which we don't do with anyone else.)

They were the best and certainly get less criticism that Ali. They get 10X the praise than the #2 guy in their sport. It's not fair, but thats the way it is. It's not their fault, and it doesn't mean that they aren't the best. Yes, Phil Mickelson, Mario Lemuix, whomever would be the #2 soccer player of all time don't get as much credit as they deserve. That doesn't mean they were the best.

Sorry, but in no universe (except that of a Leonard fan) is he the, "clear" (read: undisputable) choice for #2 Welter of all-time. How about Emile Griffith? Beau Jack? Henry Armstrong? Jose Napoles? Kid Gavilan? Joe Walcott? Barney Ross? Carmen Basilio?

Fact is, Leonard has more than enough competition for that number two spot (& of the above fighters, one I definitely would place ahead of him is Griffith, possibly one or two others as well).

All of those fighters were great, and none of them were as good as Leonard. I have mentioned Leonard's abilities and his accomplishments, and you have never disputed them.

What about the rest of those guys?
Emile Griffith -Won 3 of 4 close decisions against Rodriquez, probably just as easily could have been 0-4. This is the only great that Griffith beat at welterweight. Griffith also lost to Benny Paret, who was nothing special.

Henry Armstrong- Had some big wins at welterweight. However, he lost to Fritzie Zivic, ywice. He even got stopped the 2nd time.

Jose Napoles -Biggest wins were over Curtis Cokes and an old Griffith. Lost to Billy Backus.

Kid Gavilan - Has some nice wins, also lost not only to great fighters like Robinson,Graham, and Ike Williams, but also to Lester Felton and Doug Ratford, twice.

Joe Walcott- Great fighter, beat a lot great competition, but was very inconsistent. Had several losses to not greats.

Barney Ross- Was a lightweight for most of his career. Had 3 tough fights with McClarnin, the best welterweight that hee ver beat. Lost Armstrong even though he weighed 142 and Armstrong was only 133.

Carmen Basilio- Has some big wins. Also had numerous bad losses-Ross Virgo,Vic Cardell,Eddie Giosa etc.

Beau Jack- Was really a lightweight. There is no reason to rank him in the Top 50 welterweights of all time.

All of these guys were great. However, if you put them under the microscope, you see that they simply weren't as good as Leonard. Leonard wins were as impressive, and he didn't have the bad losses. It's really not that hard to figure out.

Once again --- I don't think any of the Heavyweights are good enough for this list. I don't think any of the Cruisers, or Light-Heavies or Bantams are, either. Why no discussion on that? Am I biased against them, too, simply by virtue of not including any?

I have already answered this. Obviuosly since we are ranking on the top 5 here, you can only have fighters from from 5 weight classes and there are more than 5. However, it seems that you atleast didn't dismiss these guys like you do with the heavweights. If you went to as far as to say that no heavyweight is in the Top 15. Please.

I'm biased against Ali. You are biased for Leonard. I'm not sure either of us will change the others mind at this point.

Ezzard wrote:Was Duran as good at welterweight as he was at lightweight?

Ambling Alp wrote:

Goodnight, Irene wrote:Alp, simply put, I have considered the Heavyweights, because as I noted, they're not precluded from my considerations. However, I have come to the conclusion that none are good enough. It's that straight-forward.

Good night- You have an obvious bias against heavyweights. You have said so yourself. "As far as pound for pound ratings go, I just flat-out will always give an edge to non-heavyweights".

That is a pretty clear statement that shows bias against heavyweights.

You may under the assumption that the heavyweight division has always been as bad as it is now. It hasn't. It's weaker now than it has been in more than 100 years. Usually there was as much depth at heavyweight as there was at most of the other weight classes at any one given moment of time. Their "skill sets" as you call it, were just as good.

You mentioned why it is supposedly harder to fight in lower weight classes. I refuted this and you didn't even try to counter my arguements.

I can see how if this thread asked for, say, (just as an example) a top thirty assessment of all-time pound-for-pounders, you would have a problem with me not mentioning Ali. But the top five? Ever? Ali is #2 on my all-time Heavyweight list (though I do not have a problem with him being #1). It'd be a tall order for him to make the five best ever. I'm hardly the only one taking that stance, btw.

I think there is a perception that I am anti-Ali because I am usually the one arguing against, however, this is because I truly do feel he has become overstated to this untouchable degree, & maybe no one notices when I have something positive to say (one of a few examples, months ago, I wrote a three paragraph acknowledgement of his ability & just how good I thought he was in the scheme of things --- only Granberry replied).

You obviously don't like the amount of attention that Ali gets. Fine. (As I have mentioned in other posts, that's how it works. The #1 guy always get way too attention. doesn't mean that they aren't the best. Tiger Woods is still the best Golfer. Gretzky was still the best Hockey player. Pele was still the best Soccer player.)
However, it's obvious that it's clouding your judgement when it comes to rating him.


Again, I've considered him. I've considered Louis, & Holmes, & Fitzsimmons. I don't think any are good enough. I don't have a, "bias" against Heavies. I just think it's harder to be a little man, & for that I assign more points.

Well, atleast you aren't as crazy as some people when it comes to ali. However, I have seen enough of your posts to know that you aren't reviewing him accurately.
I pointed out why he had the abilites (best handspeed and reflexes pound for pound etc. ) and had the career achievements that right up there with anyone. (Most dominating title reign -1964-1967, of anyone of any weight, able to be the best when past his best in a very strong era, 1970-1975.)
You didn't even try to refute that.

Once again "I just think it's harder being a little man". As I mentioned earlier, that notion isn't very well thought out.



As for Leonard, I've never said a single bad word about him on the forum. I wrote that short spiel about him to bait Granberry, & you seem to think because I wasn't serious, that I have no respect for him. But if we are going to play the bias card because Ali isn't in my top five, I think it only fair that we assess Leonard (one of your favourites, by coincidence?) being in your top five, when it's easily arguable that he isn't the best in Welterweight history, & could quite obviously only just slip into the top five in the history of that division, much less all boxing.

No it's not easily arguable that Leonard wasn't one of the top 5 welterweights of all time. He is the obvious choice for #2, only behind Robinson. If you block out all the anti-Leonard BS on this forum and just llok at his career, it's not that difficult to see.

Yes, I like Leonard. so what. Are you telling me that most people favorites aren't great fighters? Who are our favorites supposed to be, guys fighting 4 rounders? The difference is that some people can rate fighters accurately whether they like them ,hate them or anything in between. I try to do this myself. I can't stand either one of them. I rate Leonard as I rate anyone else. Some people are obviously not able to rate fighters with any objectivity.
And I am not one of those phonies that pretends they like a guy that they don't (attempting to make it look like they are objective) and rate them much lower than they should.

You haven't even tried to mention other welterweights that were supposedly better.
I mentioned his career achievements, and you didn't even try to refute them.
I mentioned his tremendous abilites and you didn't even try to refute that.

He was the clear #2 welterweight of all time, only behind Robinson who many people have as the #1 pound for pound fighter of all time, including yourself.
Add his victory over Hagler after a long layoff, and he has to be considered.

Robinson, Armstrong,Langford,Greb,Pep,Charles and a few others all had phenomenal careers and are all close. You aren't going to find many people that are in complete agreement.
However, so were Ali and Leonard also had great abilities, and great resumes, if you will. If they aren't in the top 5, they can't be far out of it.


I answered your comments in bold. Hope that makes sense.

granberry wrote:

Ambling Alp wrote: Add his victory over Hagler after a long layoff.

WHAT 'victory' over Hagler?

Running for your life and grabbing and holding on is not a victory,

except in the world of the clueless media.

Elton John wrote:

dr_devious wrote:

Elton John wrote:He was lucky Terry Norris wasnt around in those days either. His career was short enough as it was.

Is this supposed to be ironic?

It's simple. If Norris had come along at the same time as leonard and if Leonard attempted to lift the title from Norris instead of Kalule, the big leonard-Hearns feast would have been wiped off the menu because Leonard would have lost.

Leonard-Hearns could have still gone on but with much of it's appeal gone. Kalule was a safe fight because he was a limited fighter lacking speed. Norris however would have proven too much for Leonard so who knows, he may have decided to end his career even earlier than 1982.